Nano Biomedicine
ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Utility of Stereo Microscopy in the Evaluation of Organic-Inorganic Composite Material

Suguru UWAZUMI1, Masato NAKAGAWA2, Kenzo MORINAGA3,
Yoshiya HASHIMOTO4, Yoshitomo HONDA2, and Shunsuke BABA3

 1Graduate School of Dentistry, Department of Oral Implantology,
2 Department of Oral Anatomy, 3Department of Oral Implantology,
4Department of Biomaterials, Osaka Dental University, Osaka, Japan
Nano Biomed 2023; 15(2):88-96, (Dec 30, Nano Biomedicine)
Synopsis
Microscopy is a traditional method to estimate the morphology or microstructure of biomaterials. However, the use of stereomicroscopy with transmitted light for the analysis of organic-inorganic composite materials has not been widely explored. In this study, we aimed to verify the usefulness of stereomicroscopy with epi- and trans-illumination and field emission-scanning electron micros-copy (FE-SEM) using the bone-substitute material, vacuum-heated epigallocatechin-conjugated gelatin sponges containing β-tricalcium phosphate granules, as model material. Compared with FE-SEM, in situ stereomicroscopy with trans-illumination facilitated the easy observation of the β-tricalcium phosphate granule distribution in sponges. Compared with epi-illumination, transmit-ted-illumination enabled easy detection of the fibrous structure of epigallocatechin-conjugated gelatin at the intergranular spaces and in the pores of β-tricalcium phosphate granules. Our findings suggest that the use of a stereomicroscope with trans-illumination may facilitate the scanning of the microstructure of organic-inorganic composite materials during biomaterial fabrication.

Key words: gelatin, stereomicroscope, transmitted light, composites


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DOI : "https://doi.org/10.11344/nano.15.88"

J-stage : Uwazumi S, Nakagawa M, Morinaga K, Hashimoto Y, Honda Y, Baba S. Utility of stereo microscopy in the evaluation of organic-inorganic composite material. Nano Biomed 2023; 15: 88-96.